Talks - Preparation for Transition

Preparation for Transition

Preparation for Transition

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
, 1998-10-07

Gurudeva talks about karma and reincarnation, being greatful for both happiness and sadness. An invitation was received from the Ford Foundation to attend a conference on AIDS to present the Hindu view. Gurudeva discusses the Hindu view concerning knowledge of impending death as being a blessing a great reward. Vasana daha tantra is explained.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. October 7. Sun 1 which is our Monday, might not be yours. But, here we are. We finished a 3-day retreat, where we have reflected upon what we did, what we are going to do, and if it is the right thing that we want to remember in our past.

Beautiful Homa today, invoking Lord Hanuman to carry Iraivan Temple - 3,200,000 tons of stone - from Bangalore, India to the garden island of Kauai, and to place it gently down on the foundation, which we hope to be built next April or May.

Well, we have a lot to be grateful for. We are grateful for health, happiness, and sadness. Sadness, because, it teaches us a wonderful message - not to do over again what made us sad or to look at life in a different way. We understand reincarnation, if we understand the law of karma. We send out prana from ourselves, that manifests as good, bad, mixed. Then, it comes back to us, gets us involved with other people, comes back to us through other people. If it is involved with animals, it comes back through animals. If it is involved with situations, we create situations that we have to face in the future. If we accept karma and we accept reincarnation, we can rationalize many of the experiences of life.

Well, we have a wonderful invitation and I am sending our Acharya Palaniswami, to a conference on AIDS, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and he will collaborate with Ma Jaya Sati Bhagawati, a worker for AIDS patients, who has an Ashram of { } and helps AIDS patients.

But, we have a different look at AIDS, or any terminal disease, such as cancer or old age. Well, if you know the end is in view, you are blessed. We are all born with a terminal disease, and that's death. We don't know when it is going to happen. So, when your doctor tells you or when you intuitively know that it's going to happen, you are blessed. To know when the doors open to go into the next world. Therefore, you can prepare yourself, by thinking good thoughts, by mending old hurts and tears. No one who knows that they are going to die - and, that's the "d" word, dirty word - that they are going to make a transition into a new life, that is beyond this life. That's a happy life, that's a free life, because it is a life that has been prepared for.

How do you prepare to move on? Well, how do you prepare to move from an old house into a new house? There are a lot of things that you have to throw away. Maybe, it hurts to throw them away. But, they don't fit into the new house and you buy new furniture. You become nouveau riche, and you are not carrying the past behind you.

Everyone is blessed, who has a terminal illness. They know the day is drawing near, to move into a new house, with new furniture, and old friends. Who are the old friends? Those, who have gone on before you. They will be there to meet you. Mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles and friends of all kinds will be there to greet you.

So, we look at terminal illness, from the Hindu point of view, from the point of view of Sanatana Dharma, as a blessing, a great reward of some kind. A reward that you do not hang on the wall and barely look at, after you have hung it on the wall. But, an award that brings you the energy and brings you the inspiration to pass through that door, out of the old house into the new house. After all, we are not the physical body. We live in it, but we are not it.

We are a soul, that is pure, untouched, unfettered, unmarred, unscarred. We are pure souls, who are somehow or other - don't ask why - living in a physical body, surrounded by emotions, some of which we can control and others which we cannot control. With an intellect, maybe clouded with opinionated knowledge, opinions which say "it may be right or it may be wrong" - that's the intellect. But, the superconscious, the intuitive mind of the soul is released when we prepare for the transition, to move on into that new house.

So, anybody out there in cyberspace, who is with Ma Jaya Sati Bhagawati, great soul, dedicated her life to helping those make that transition, cross that bridge. That means, watching people clean up the past. Don't drag old things along with you, write everything down on a piece of paper, burn it up, and let it go. For some it might take only 5 pieces of paper, others 500. Maybe for others, who have lived a really promiscuous life, 5000 pieces of paper, 8 and 1/2 by 11, sentences very close together. But, do it anyway. Clear the emotion out of the experience.

We are here to have experiences. We are here to understand the experience of how to take the emotion of the experience out of the experience, so that we can understand the experience. That is called the Vasana Daha Tantra. Write the experience down, as many times as it takes, and burn it up. Watch the flame come up. You will know that you are released. Pretty soon you will write the same experience you cried about, or were angry about, or that frustrated you and you will have no frustration, no anger, no tears. You will look at you, as if you were reading somebody else's life. That is the way to unleash the baggage. Let the sandbags go out of the balloon, so that you can soar.

I'm seeing you in cyberspace, so many faces. There's Eileen from { }. Aloha, Eileen. And there is { } and Jiva in Bangalore and oh ... so many wonderful faces. I will be seeing you in cyberspace, in our very familiar place, through your computer screen. I love you and know that you love everyone.